Whether you’re a WISP, fibre provider or LTE carrier, high latency on your network is not good for business and latency is what sets a great ISP apart from a good one. As we continue to build our networks and expand territories, our latency can start to jump and while we think that 100ms ping is not too bad, what is happening downstream is a grim picture. The actual throughput and authentication response time of packets are what matters.

Picture one of your customers demonstrating his or her new 100Mbps fibre line to a neighbour, only to reveal a high latency! Never has it been easier to lose customers to the competition through a simple, often enough, generic speed test.

The reality is that end-users don’t care how the internet reaches them, be it a fibre cable, wireless CPE or mobile LTE router. It’s about what they can do with the access. If downloading emails is a hassle, you can forget content streaming over multiple devices.

The nationwide lockdown saw home networks come under huge strain as multiple residents began using their home connection for a combination of business, school and recreational needs. The levels of stress already high became exacerbated by jerky, garbled and unsteady connectivity when communicating using video conferencing tools.

This was the result of a bottleneck of TCP and UDP traffic. Because TCP traffic is so dense and makes up on average eighty percent of internet traffic, bandwidth downstream began to take a hit and unavoidable buffering began to take place.

Bequant stepped into the breach and those who installed this transparent TCP proxy on their networks enjoyed faster authentication, concurrently reducing latency on international and local traffic.

Those ISPs that saw the gradual increase in demand coming over the horizon had the competitive advantage of accelerating their TCP and shaping their bandwidth after deep packet inspection revealed the domains, the IP addresses and the times of day when bandwidth was needed the most.

By shaping certain applications like Netflix and Youtube, you can fix certain bandwidth to those applications before the 4K streaming runs away with your entire pipe. Shaping applications depending on their peak usage times, you can ensure that everyone on your network can have uninterrupted streaming without having to buffer.

This type of network optimisation is within reach for ISPs. Bequant enables providers to not only accelerate TCP but also throttle certain bandwidth-intensive applications that the deep packet inspection uncovers.

There has never been a better time to learn more about the behaviours of your networks so that you can predict consumer trends and act to ensure that you keep your customers by giving them the best service at any given time.

Get started with Bequant by registering for a free 14-day trial and see for yourself how you can increase your customer satisfaction ratings!